Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, hold­ing added re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day as act­ing House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives leader, sat through it all as UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar blazed Gov­ern­ment on health­care.

“They have the deaths of our in­no­cent new­born ba­bies on their hands! ... they sim­ply don’t care! This Gov­ern­ment has failed cit­i­zens time and time again in health and every oth­er sec­tor ... as they’ve failed as a Gov­ern­ment on the whole!” Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared in de­bate of UNC’s mo­tion on health.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, busy yes­ter­day try­ing to save re­gion­al crick­et, wasn’t present in Par­lia­ment. But Row­ley’s re­cent com­ments have dis­tanced him from the lat­est threat to his Gov­ern­ment’s im­age—ris­ing death toll of ba­bies at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal’s Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit (NICU).

As nec­es­sary. In an elec­tion year, the is­sue in­volves the deep­est of emo­tions in an­oth­er front­line min­istry con­cern­ing life and death mat­ters like Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (where there’s been enough fail­ure that Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on Tues­day ad­mit­ted his dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the crime sit­u­a­tion).

With the cri­sis stamp­ing a bulls­eye on the back of any health mat­ter—and can­non fod­der for the Op­po­si­tion and le­gal as­so­ciates—it’s ahead how PNM’s im­age emerges.

Among ques­tions on the is­sue—in­clud­ing nurse-to-ba­by ra­tio and space al­lo­ca­tion stan­dards, the bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tion of the clus­ter case sig­nals a col­lapse of sys­tems some­where, care­less­ness and com­pla­cen­cy. Deyals­ingh’s sought to dis­tance Gov­ern­ment from the mat­ter via com­ments: he’s tak­ing a po­lit­i­cal hands-off ap­proach to its probe and he wasn’t in­sert­ing him­self in the process.

But cop­ing mech­a­nisms pro­duced side­line skir­mish­es with the Op­po­si­tion on the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal’s NICU, ig­nit­ing calls for Deyals­ingh to an­swer on an­oth­er is­sue—the where­abouts of Cou­va’s NICU equip­ment.

The depth of the cri­sis, in­clud­ing an at­tempt to re­but on the Cou­va NICU, was re­flect­ed in bun­gled min­istry dam­age con­trol: Thurs­day’s ill-con­sid­ered me­dia tour of the PoS­GH NICU. It in­sert­ed Deyals­ingh’s min­istry in­to the process fa­cil­i­tat­ing a tour of an area where deaths oc­curred while PA­HO’s probe of the deaths was on­go­ing.

It’s yet an­oth­er probe—Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters are pend­ing, in­clud­ing SSA’s, Point Fortin High­way en­quiry, Sec­ondary Roads Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Com­pa­ny au­dit, and TSTT’s cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty breach probes. The in­de­pen­dent re­port on TSTT is still await­ed by the line min­istry, it’s con­firmed. The June dead­line for TSTT’s in-house probe looms.

Whether the health calami­ty’s dis­cussed at to­day’s PNM Gen­er­al Coun­cil, the PNM’s fi­nal­is­ing prepa­ra­tions for par­ty polls and the June 2 Fam­i­ly Day.

Al­so in or­gan­i­sa­tion­al mode, UNC to­mor­row marks its 35th an­niver­sary, where the agen­da for what’s ahead—to­wards its cru­cial gen­er­al elec­tion test—is ex­pect­ed. Helmed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar for 14 years, new modus operan­di is ex­pect­ed for GE-bound, when the sharpest ma­te­r­i­al and can­di­dates are de­mand­ed.

Its ac­count­abil­i­ty push has been an ag­gres­sive con­stant in Gov­ern­ment’s terms, but PNM’s fail­ures can­not be count­ed up­on to bol­ster its im­age. UNC’s own chal­lenges in­clude its past, nec­es­sary sup­port ex­pan­sion as some de­part and lead­er­ship chal­lenges.

In the lat­est in­volv­ing MPs Rod­ney Charles and the four oth­ers, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s rule last week emerged vic­to­ri­ous in the de­bate on the spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty Con­sti­tu­tion­al (Amend­ment) Bill. While MP Rush­ton Paray ab­sent­ed him­self, the oth­ers toed the par­ty line. Yes­ter­day, it was al­so one UNC: Charles de­mand­ing an­swers from Gov­ern­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clar­ing them fail­ures.

The group, a tar­get of Mon­day’s blis­ter­ing at­tack by young UNC MPs, may hard­ly at­tend to­mor­row’s func­tion. Charles and Ram­bal­ly are signed up for to­mor­row’s 5KM Port-of-Spain road race.

It’s ahead if an­niver­sary speech­es bring word of the June Na­tex elec­tion the group’s re­quest­ed. If not, one es­tranged MP said they may again for­mal­ly re­quest the elec­tion. “Fail­ure to fol­low UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion may see re­sort to le­gal ac­tion,” they spec­u­lat­ed.

At the group’s San Fer­nan­do meet­ing, Paray wel­comed guests, in­clud­ing, “all my col­leagues in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty”. Se­nior Coun­sel Lar­ry Lal­la, who at­tend­ed Paray’s first brief­ing, sub­se­quent­ly post­ed he’ll prob­a­bly say more in days/weeks ahead.

But there’s con­fi­dence the in­ter­nals will be held, that Per­sad-Bisses­sar may al­so con­test, and an an­nounce­ment may come be­tween to­mor­row and the mid-May dead­line by which be­gins the six-week process to­ward the June 25 in­ter­nals.

For ei­ther par­ty, much more- in­clud­ing pres­sure, is ahead.